Assassin lingo

"I have KBed him and used LO with DWW and then followed with GC+SS and FC. Use that against hox and tos"

This is actual quote  that I have seen on forums, posted as a tip for the newcomer.If I was that poor newb I would have been like: "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT".

So I have written this little guide to take you young cutters into the inner circle of Assassindom. First, as with all things, you have to learn the lingo. Hence here we are.

The most commonly used abbreviations:

Combos:
SDS - slow death strikes
SS - swift strikes (can also mean soul strike, see miasmas)
Kick - snap kick
GC - grim corruption
IL - impede life
GB, grave - grave's blossom
DWW, DW - death's whirlwind


CC and CC breakers:
CC - crowd control, effect that makes your opponent stuned, feared etc.
KB - knock back, can be applied via snap kick
Immunity - when lotus overload procs you are pretty much immiune to magic for 5s
OP - opportunistic strike (stun)
DG, gaze - death's gaze (fear)
Curse - curse of the lotus (fear)
EB - excellent balance

Buffs and Debuffs:
LO - lotus overload
Avatar - avatar of death
Kidney, KS - kidney shots
DP - dull pain
Burden, B2B - burden to bear (armor debuff)

Mechanics and Miasmas:
Shards, Souls - soul shards, those are consumed by miasmas and some combos, regenerated over time,
DoT - damage over time,
FS - face stab miasma
SS - soul strike miasma
Dart - lotus dart miasma
Buff - effect that makes your character stronger (like dull pain)
Debuff - effect that makes your character weaker (like armor ruin)
FTD - from the darkness (charge)
Explosion, Bomb, Detonation - essence detonation

Classes:
Sin - assassin
Hox - herald of xotli
Tos - tempest of set
Guard - guardian
Pom - priest of Mitra
Demo - demonologist
Necro - necromancer
Pet - usually necromancer's pets
Barb - barbarian
Conq - conqueror
DT - dark templar

Minigames:
HV, vault - hallowed vault
LT, temple - lost temple
BR - blood ravine
Totem, TT - totem torrent
SAG - The Call of Jhebbal Sag

PVE vs PVP

Can't get into PVE. And the picture is my character inside fat PVE boss. See what I did there? Cleverness! The issue is a little more serious thou. Recently I have given PVE a fair shake. How fair one? Done few hard modes, tried the district instances in Paikang and even went 3 times for the Toth-Amon tier 3 raid. I really wanted to enjoy those activities and to some extend I did. Hell, I even used my over the time training for the PVE cover of the dusk golden perk. I kinda regret it now.

The problem is that I don't enjoy group PVE all that much. I think I have just missed the social part of my gaming, you know, signing up on vent, talking to people. That experience is pretty alien to PVPers. Yeah, I am slowly becoming a sociopath. There are a couple of things that just don't click with me when it comes to group PVE and here the list:

Time investment - By Crom! PVE is just a time sink. What I love about PvP is that you can just do *click click* join a minigame, pwn or get pwned in 10-20 minutes tops and you are done. Done! I really enjoy that I can cut my playtime into pieces, so to speak, and enjoy the game in such a way that I can make my gaming fit my schedule and not the other way around: setting everything to fit the raiding time etc.The group instances can take quite a big chunk of time and the raiding is just absurd. For the first time in a couple of years I actually got into argument with my significant other over my gaming. "But I CAN'T just turn it off, we are on second boss!" Of course I haven't said that, but what I really like about PvP is the predictability. I can merely check the time and say: "I will be done in 4 minutes". With raiding? I can only check my watch and think "I should have been done like an hour ago".

"Remember, Time is a greedy player Who wins without cheating, every round!"
The Clock - Charles Baudelair

Effort investment - The "looking for MT and healer" stuff is killing me. Seems like a pure waste of time. I know that Age of Conan is pretty ancient with how LFG work, but still you cannot compare experience to what you are getting with minigames: click & join. True, if you get a good group for PVE the experience will be much more pleasurable than trying to handle your random team mates, but I will take my random group of non-existent group because I can't get that damn tank).

Fun factor - It seem like I am just not cut for the group pve. From what I understand PVE is very much about team effort. There is no place for "I" in the word "team". As a person I aim for individual achievements and I am not really a team player. Sure, there is a team effort in group PVP, but it seems like in 6v6 or even 12vs12 I as a player have a significant impact on the outcome. In raiding I am just another "DPS monkey" and in group PVE it very much seems like the success or failure lies in the hands of tank and healer. I also very much enjoy the lore and story in my solo PVE. I literally read every bit of quest text. What I don't like in group PVE that everyone is RUSHING things: clickly clicky the NPC, get quest, rush in, bam bam the quest mobs, and we are done. Also I can get that sweet adrenaline rush whenever I am getting another player down, but I cannot seem to get same feeling when the Boss going down.

So there you have it. There is nothing wrong with Age of Conan  group PVE content, but it seems like I am PVPer at heart. I am glad that I gave PVE a fair shake and will most likely try out new PVE stuff that will be coming out, but my daily gaming can only be PVP and that is the way I like it.

 

Update Notes 3.1 - 13th of December [Assassin]

Assassin

• The Corrupted Poison feat now also lowers the reuse time of the Grim Corruption combos.
• Increased the finisher bonus damage of the Slow Death Strike combos.

Assassin's Hideout Podcast - ep.26

show notes:

- patch 3.1 taking long
- AOC in 2012
- podcast on FTP and in mp3!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/516323/podcast/Assassins_hideout26.mp3

Edit: had some technical problems, the file is fucked up a bit :X.
Edit 1: the file is now hosted on dropbox.com

Age of Conan addon 2012?

I have been thinking where the devs are going to take us in the next add on for Age of Conan. Hyboria is a very vast land (continent?) so there is plenty to pick from. Instead of trying to the the guessing I have decided to give you my top 4 wish list for the places I would like to see in Age of Conan

4. Vanaheim and Asgard - aesirs and vanirs are constantly raiding each others. I kinda miss the mountains in Age of Conan (haven't had a chance to visit them since last year's event) and it would be great chance for introducing two new factions to AOC. Since Funcom already used up the stuff from "Frost Gigant's daughter" story from REH it is very unlikely that we will see it.

3. Hyperborea - shrouded in mystery, high magic and decadence. It would have most interesting visuals for sure.

2. Zamora - with it's city of thieves: Shadizar. I am a bit tired of eastern themes in AOC, but I will like to visit this city for sure.

1. Nemedia - this is it! I want another epic struggle between Aquilonia and Nemedia, two mightiest countries of the dreaming west. You can see the very border of Nemedia and Aquilonia if you go to the Border Range instance. There are also two great stories from REH portraying the conflict between those empires: The Hour of The Dragon and Scarlet Citadel.

Nemedian armor

Nemedian architecture

Visit Border Range for a great place to RP in

World Drops

I have always had 3 main issues with Age of Conan. First being the looks: everyone looked the same. Constantly looking at same, plain, dirty armor that everyone on your level is wearing. Luckily the vanity armor tab fixed that and now I am constantly amazed how creative people can get with their style.

Second thing is crafting. Lets not beat the dead horse here. Luckily, again, the current system is getting burned to the ground and rebuild from scratch. Last, but not least: the world drops.

Age of Conan has the hands down THE worst looting system I have ever seen. The worst. Pretty much all the mobs are dropping is trash, hardly worth picking up. I personally really like the world drops. To this day I remember my low level epic mace that dropped on my +30lvl Rogue in World of Warcraft many years ago. That felt great. I think that a large part of a pleasure that comes out of playing an MMO is that feeling of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the next mob will drop something really good. When you could get epic weapons in the Villas people used to play those non-stop and there were no complains that it is boring or repetitive (hell, I like to re-visit those from time to time even now). Then the purple rain came. For those of you that weren't here in 2008 to experience it: the mobs in Potains (back then Potain was infestedwith demons for no reason whatsoever) were dropping blue weapons on each kill and epic weapons every couple of kills. It was insane, obvious bug. Funcom's solution? The removal of epic world drops from the game *face palm*.

With the Khitai expansion came the loot bags. Now, I like the very idea, but hate the execution. While epic weapons can pop out those bags (I have seen those on trader) it is very, very, very, very rare. That and the drops are not really comparable to vendor sold epics. I am running my Khitai quest rotation daily and on average I get about 12-15 bags (those advanced ones). To this day I got only about 5-8 BLUE weapons out of those. I think I have easily opened couple thousands of bags and got few mere blues. Great.

Room for improvements? I am not saying that mobs should shower players with epics (trust me, tried that with bugged demons and it gets boring fast :D), but player should be rewarded from time to time for his efforts. Social items, nicely looking blues, crazy mount, or even pet would have been welcomed.

If the crafting system was working I would have at least be pleased with the crafting materials drops. After 3 years I have 3 bank characters JAM PACKED with crafting stuff and that is after helping my guild reach renown lvl20 through crafting.

But seeing how vanity tab changed the game for the better (can imagine now playing without it) there is still hope that crafting will again turn the tables for Age of Conan.  

What is the best stuff you have gotten out of your solo PVE in the open world in Age of Conan?